


Racetrack Higgins

by aceofsparrows



Category: Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: M/M, Sprace if you squint, basically just a character study, race is irish headcanon, the oc is race's little sister annie that i made up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-20
Updated: 2019-05-20
Packaged: 2020-03-08 19:44:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18901390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aceofsparrows/pseuds/aceofsparrows
Summary: When did Anthony become Racetrack? And how does he know Spot Conlon?Just a little character study on how Race became Race, and why he makes that comment about his mother and the Coronas (because we're all secretly dying to know, right?).





	Racetrack Higgins

**Author's Note:**

> The present tense of this snippet is set in 1899 (loosely pre/post strike). The past tense spans Race's childhood and early adolescence (roughly 1893- age 10- to 1896- age 12/13).

**“Oh, they got a mother? I was gonna get me one.”**

“What’d you do with the one you had?”

“He traded her for a box a cigars.”

**“Hey, they was Coronas!”**

“We got a father too!”

**“Oh, a mother and a father… well aren’t we the hoi polloi.”**

*** * ***

The name his mother gave him was Anthony. His sister called him Tony because that pesky _th_ was too hard for her five-year-old mouth, and his father simply referred to him as _a leanbh*_. Anthony was a smiling, fair-haired child, always running or climbing or swinging from something. Not a care in the world, he and his little sister Annie would get into all sorts of trouble, playing pirates on the fire escape of their tenement building with the other children whose parents had come to New York from Ireland, pilfering freshly baked soda bread or scones from their mother’s kitchen. But that was a lifetime ago.

Spot was the one who coined the name “Racetrack” when they were twelve and he found Anthony hanging around the stables at Sheepshead, bothering the jockeys with his endless questions and feeding the horses sugar cubes he stole from the office cupboards with his slim, light fingers.

“Hey, you,” the other boy had said, and Anthony had jumped more than he’d ever admit. “You don’t belong here. This is Brooklyn’s turf, and you’s gonna get soaked if ya stick around.”

“I ain’t seen nobody who wan’ed ta soak me yet,” Anthony had replied, and Spot had laughed. Anthony sounded funny to Spot, with his life’s peculiar blend of Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn and Ireland all mixing together on his tongue.

“You from around here?” Spot had asked, eyes narrow.

“Yeah. Well, sorta,” he’d shrugged.

“Sorta?”

“’s not important.”

They’d looked at each other for a long moment, and then Spot had laughed again, smiling in amusement. “You got a name, kid?”

“ _You_ got a name, _kid_?” He’d shot back, ruffled that some shorty probably no older than he was had called him _kid_.

“Spot Conlon, leader ‘a the Brooklyn newsies and toughest guy this side ‘a the East River,” Spot had said, chest puffed up with pride.

Anthony’s eyes had widened, but he hadn’t said anything. Spot had frowned, looking him over.

“Well, if you ain’t gonna tell me your name I’s gonna give ya a new one. How ‘bout Racetrack, cause you’s always hanging around them jockeys at Sheepshead.” He said it as more of a statement than a question, so Anthony simply nodded. Spot grinned. “Good. Now that we got that settled,” his expression had darkened, and Anthony had taken a step back, eyes wide. “Get off my turf.” Anthony hadn’t needed to be told twice; he had turned tail and ran.

What Spot Conlon saw that day was a newly-untethered twelve year old, freshly orphaned and alone in the world. His hair was shockingly blond and straight as a stick, hanging down longer than it should have been since he hadn’t seen a pair of scissors in months. His body was entering that awkward phase most boys go through in early adolescence where they look as though they’ve been put through a taffy puller or clothes wringer, limbs all stretched out, long and gangly. He was thin as a rail from a few weeks worth of odd-job malnutrition, cheeks starting to hollow, eyes slightly sunken with deep shadows. He was already at least two heads taller than Spot (who was cursed with shortness of stature, but obviously not shortness of bravado or intimidation), and his nose was shorter than he would have liked― “like a little button,” his mother had said once― something he’d been told he’d inherited from his grandmother (much to his chagrin).

This was the boy he was as he ran away from Brooklyn back to Manhattan. This was the boy he was when he was taken under the wing of fourteen-year-old Jack Kelly, the newly- christened leader of the Lower Manhattan newsies. This was “Racetrack”, but it was not quite yet “Race”.

Race is the smart-ass, loudmouth right hand of the infamous Jack Kelly. His unlit cigar is a constant, dangling from his lips, giving him what he thinks is a sophisticated look for a sixteen-year-old. He never smokes it, no, for cigars are much too expensive for frivolous consumption (except on special occasions, like Christmas or really good headline days). Most of the boys laugh at him for this when he isn’t listening, but he doesn’t care. He’s Racetrack Higgins, the only Manhattan newsie allowed to sell in Brooklyn because of his mysterious friendship with Spot Conlon. He’s Racetrack Higgins, the best horse better and poker player in any of the five boroughs.

Race has changed in many ways since that day at Sheepshead. He’s taller, for one, almost as tall as Jack even though he’s two years younger. His hair is curlier than it ever was, and darkened to a dishwater blond now— though it’d probably be lighter if he washed it more often. He’s stronger than ever from carrying those heavy bundles of newspapers and helping Crutchie get around when his crutch goes missing, but still thin and wiry; they make barely enough in a day’s work to both eat and sleep indoors, so sometimes one or the other has to be forgone. His skin is thicker too; the insults and slurs don’t pierce him like they used to. Now they just bounce right off, and Race moves on like he always has, laughing it off and throwing a better jab back. The other boys know he’s not to be messed with, and he only answers to Jack. You listen when Race tells you to do something, because if you don’t you’ll feel the older boys’ fire.

But the one thing everybody who meets Race remembers about him are his eyes. They are an electric blue, the kind of color than reaches out and demands to be looked at. There’s a twinkle of mischievousness in them on the surface that is the first thing most people see, one that pairs naturally with his resident shit-eating grin. But underneath that mischievous gaze is a deeper sadness, and if you watch him for long enough you’ll see that the cocky smile never fully reaches his eyes and his dimples are so shallow that they’re only slightly more than shadows at the corners of his lips. He’s like an Irish-American Manhattan-born Peter Pan, eternally young and yet eternally alone.

Sometimes he’ll go back to the stables after hours, slipping inside to pet the horses when he’s sure no one will see him. He likes their silent sureness, how they always seem to be listening when he tells them things he never tells anyone else. And sometimes Spot will find him there and they’ll bicker for old-time’s sake, throwing conversation back and forth like an old, worn baseball. And sometimes Race will whisper how scared he is of the future, and Spot will hold him tight, replying that he’s scared too. Because they aren’t Lost Boys at all, just boys that are lost— unmoored and drifting closer and closer to adulthood with no compass to guide them or anchor to keep them from being swept away by a malevolent gust of wind.

And in those sorts of moments, he isn’t Race anymore. Not Racetrack either, nor even Anthony or Tony or _a leanbh_ or “kid”. He’s someone else, someone who doesn’t have a name yet, someone who’s waiting in the wings for his proper entrance. He’s a piece of the man he will become, and also a piece of the boy he has been. He’s his own, and maybe a little bit Spot’s too (just a little bit). And it’s good to know that whomever he becomes next, it’ll be the best version of him yet.

**Author's Note:**

> *"a leanbh" is a Gaelic term of endearment meaning “my child” or “my baby”. Pronounced “ah lan-ov”. I don't speak Gaelic, so if this is wrong, please let me know! I literally just googled "Gaelic terms of endearment" and picked one... :) 
> 
> **Higgins, Race’s surname, is an anglicized version of an old Irish/Gaelic surname, Ó hUiginn. 
> 
> My personal version of Race is based primarily upon the musical’s version, with notable influence on character traits from Ben Cook’s portrayal of Race. His speech/accent, though mostly based upon the musical, is also what I imagine to be a somewhat realistic verbal cocktail of cultures as was normal at the time, especially for children of immigrants balancing their parent’s accented english and/or native language with the accents of the area. Race’s backstory is mostly of my own creation, although some aspects (including his connection to Spot Conlon) are inspired by other fansies’ ideas. I like to headcanon him as Irish, because I think it adds some interesting dynamic, and also because there were a lot of Irish immigrants in New York at the turn of the century, and statistically at least some of the newsies would be Irish (also, the background music when they go to Brooklyn in the '92 movie? Um, not very subtle...). I mean, with last names like Kelly/Sullivan, Conlon, and Higgins, ya think SOME of them would be Irish. 
> 
> But I digress. I'm a huge history nerd, especially about turn-of-the-century America, so most of my canon-era fics will probably be accompanied by some sort of background history lesson because I normally do a TON of research for them. :) 
> 
> Thank you for reading my first fic here on AO3!!  
> -Sparrow


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